In Türkiye (Turkey), every health facility and every intermediary that serves international health tourists must hold an International Health Tourism Authorization Certificate (Uluslararası Sağlık Turizmi Yetki Belgesi). The Ministry of Health issues it to facilities; USHAŞ, the Ministry’s international health services company, issues it to intermediaries. The rules come from a regulation published in the Official Gazette on 26 April 2025 (No. 32882), which replaced the 2017 regulation. To verify a partner, ask for the certificate number and date, find the exact legal name on the Ministry’s published lists or the HealthTürkiye agency list, and write the certificate into your contract.
Updated: 2026-10-17 · Reading time: 19 min · Guide
When an agency sends a patient to Türkiye, the patient signs with a clinic the agency has usually never audited. Of everything the clinic tells you — success rates, surgeon biographies, before-and-after photos — one claim can be checked against a government record in five minutes: whether it is authorised for international health tourism at all. This guide explains that record. It covers what the certificate is, who issues it, what it does and does not prove, how to check it, and what to write into your contract.
It is written for referral agencies, facilitators and insurers outside Türkiye, and for the Turkish providers who want to be found by them. If you are a Turkish clinic, the Turkish edition of this page walks through the application itself step by step. If you are an agency, Health onMESSE is where you can meet authorised Turkish providers in scheduled video meetings, free of charge for agencies.
The International Health Tourism Authorization Certificate is the licence that allows a Turkish health facility or intermediary to serve people who travel to Türkiye for treatment. It sits on top of the ordinary operating licence every Turkish health facility needs: a hospital can be fully licensed to treat residents and still not be authorised to treat health tourists. Article 5(1) of the regulation is unambiguous — holding the certificate is mandatory for any facility or intermediary that operates in international health tourism.
The current rules are set by the Regulation on International Health Tourism and Tourist Health, published in the Official Gazette (Resmî Gazete) on 26 April 2025, issue 32882, and in force from that day. Article 17 repealed the previous regulation of 13 July 2017. Many guides online still describe the 2017 rules — for example, that every intermediary had to be a Group A travel agency. Under the 2025 text an intermediary is any certified legal entity, and it must route accommodation, transport and transfers through a licensed travel agency unless it is one itself.
The 2025 regulation also gave existing holders six months to comply, after which non-compliant certificates were to be cancelled. It set 31 December 2025 as the deadline for complication insurance for surgical and interventional procedures in an operating-room setting. Türkiye’s Council of State suspended that obligation on 25 December 2025 and lifted the suspension on 21 May 2026, so it applies again while the annulment case continues. And it requires TÜSKA accreditation or a Ministry certificate by 31 December 2026, a little over two months after this page was last checked. A list you downloaded last year is therefore not a reliable picture of who is authorised today.
The regulation’s annexes publish two certificate templates. The health facility version (annex EK-3/A) is headed by the Ministry of Health, General Directorate of Health Services, carries the HealthTürkiye and USHAŞ marks, states in Turkish and English that the institution is entitled to engage in international health tourism under the regulation, shows a certificate date and number, and is signed on behalf of the Minister by the Director General of Health Services. It has no expiry-date field. The intermediary version (annex EK-3/B) is issued by USHAŞ under the HealthTürkiye brand, cites the regulation and Additional Article 2 of Decree-Law No. 663, shows a certificate number, a certificate date and a field for the certificate’s period of validity, carries a QR code, and is signed by USHAŞ’s General Manager and Chair of the Board. Read any certificate you are sent in that order: who issued it, to whom, on what legal basis, under which number and date, until when, and who signed it.
The regulation splits the market into two roles and authorises each through a different body. The question to ask about any Turkish partner is simple: does it treat patients, or does it organise their trip? Many groups do both, and then each legal entity needs its own certificate.
A health facility — a public, university or private hospital, a medical centre, a private practice, a laboratory, a dental clinic or another licensed facility — gets its certificate from the Ministry of Health. It applies through the Ministry’s EKİP platform, the provincial or district health directorate reviews the file and inspects on site, and the Ministry issues the certificate. Authorised facilities appear on four PDF lists published by the Ministry’s Health Tourism Department: hospitals, medical centres, private practices and other facilities. An intermediary — a company that advises international patients and organises the facility, accommodation, transport and transfers — gets its certificate from USHAŞ, which also inspects it. Authorised intermediaries are listed on the HealthTürkiye portal. A group that runs both a hospital and a patient-coordination company needs a certificate for each, and every additional intermediary branch needs its own.
A certificate is a floor, not a recommendation. It tells you a regulator has looked at the organisation and that the organisation has accepted a set of obligations. It does not tell you that a particular surgeon is good, that a price is fair, or that the certificate is still active on the day your patient flies.
The certificate tells you that the holder applied with a defined set of documents, passed an on-site inspection, and accepted the regulation’s obligations: an international patient unit with foreign-language staff, a responsible staff member per patient recorded on the Portal, itemised invoices with free copies of results and prescriptions, Ministry-set pricing rules, a complaints process, responsibility for the services it provides in Türkiye (Article 6(3), whose words on complications are reported to be suspended by the Council of State), and annual performance reviews by USHAŞ. It does not tell you that a specific doctor is qualified for a specific procedure, what the outcome or price will be, that the holder is the same entity as the brand you are talking to, that the certificate is still active today, that any intermediary acting for the clinic is itself certified, or how your own country’s rules on health data, insurance and advertising apply.
Note also what accreditation means here. Many Turkish hospitals hold voluntary international accreditations such as JCI. Those are useful signals, but they are not what the regulation asks for: the legal requirement is the authorization certificate plus TÜSKA accreditation or the Ministry certificate. A JCI plaque on the wall does not replace either.
Verification takes less time than a first call with a new clinic. Do it before the first referral, then again at every contract renewal and whenever the partner changes its name, address or ownership.
Step one, ask: request the certificate number and date in writing, the exact legal name of the certificate holder, proof of TÜSKA accreditation or of the Ministry’s certificate, the complication insurance policy covering operating-room procedures, and the name of the responsible staff member who will be assigned to your patients. Step two, match: find the exact legal name on the Ministry’s current list for the facility type, and check that province, address and phone agree; for an intermediary, find it on the HealthTürkiye agency list; if a travel agency handles logistics, check its licence on the TÜRSAB agency search and the TÜRSAB list of cancelled licences; and compare the name on the partner’s website with the name on the certificate. Step three, write it in: put the certificate number and date into the contract, require the partner to tell you within a few days if the certificate is suspended or cancelled, and give yourself the right to stop referring if it is.
Two practical warnings. First, the Ministry’s lists show name, province, facility type, address and phone — not certificate numbers — so the legal name is the key you match on. Chains appear once per site, and private practices are listed under the doctor’s name. Second, absence from a list is a reason to ask, not proof of wrongdoing; presence on a list is a reason to proceed, not a guarantee. Lists move: the Ministry’s July 2024 snapshot showed 654 hospitals and 189 medical centres, the October 2026 lists show 546 and 135.
The certificate earns its value only if your agreement refers to it. These clauses follow directly from the regulation; a lawyer will add the commercial and liability terms.
Article 6(1)(e) says that a health facility may not obtain services from uncertified persons or organisations for activities an intermediary is supposed to carry out. The regulation defines those activities as advising international patients and their companions and organising the facility, accommodation, transport and transfers. It does not say whether, or how, this applies to a referral agency that is established and operates outside Türkiye, and the intermediary application file — Turkish Trade Registry Gazette, Turkish social security employment notices — is built for a Turkish company.
Read together, these are a reason to ask your Turkish partner in writing how it structures the relationship. One example is whether the in-country logistics — airport transfer, hotel, interpreter — are delivered by a certified intermediary or a licensed travel agency. Have a Turkish lawyer review the arrangement. This guide does not answer that question for you. One more detail helps: facilities and intermediaries must declare every service unit they run abroad on the Portal (Article 8(5)), so a Turkish partner with an office in your country should be able to show that declaration.
Certificates are not permanent badges. USHAŞ assesses every certified facility and intermediary at least once a year against five performance criteria published in annex EK-2. A partner rated partly adequate or inadequate is re-assessed within three months. If it still fails, its certificate is suspended for three months (partly adequate) or six months (inadequate), then assessed again within three months; a further failure means cancellation (Article 9).
Inspections add a second route. Under the inspection forms in annexes EK-4 and EK-5, operating without a certificate means the service is stopped, an administrative fine of 5% of the previous month’s gross service revenue (at least 250,000 Turkish lira, the 2025 figure; fixed amounts rise each year by the official revaluation rate) is imposed, and a criminal complaint is filed. A facility that uses uncertified intermediaries, or an intermediary that works with an uncertified facility, has its health tourism activity stopped for three months, then six months, and then loses its certificate. Improperly kept records mean a six-month suspension, and cancellation if repeated within a year. A year without health tourism activity also means cancellation, and a cancelled organisation cannot obtain a new certificate for one year (Article 16).
For Turkish partners — and for agencies who want to know what their partner went through — the process runs on business-day clocks set in Article 5. A facility first applies for membership of the HealthTürkiye Portal, then files through EKİP with the documents in annex EK-1/A. An intermediary sends the documents in annex EK-1/B to USHAŞ. For 2026, the Ministry has set the fee for a health facility certificate at 18,604.00 Turkish lira.
Health facility: the provincial or district health directorate reviews the file and reports any deficiency within 15 business days; the applicant has 30 business days to fix it, otherwise the application is deemed rejected; a complete file is followed by an on-site inspection; an approved file goes to the Ministry within 15 business days; and the Ministry issues the certificate within 15 business days of approving it. Intermediary: USHAŞ reviews the file and reports deficiencies within 15 business days; the applicant has 30 business days to fix them; USHAŞ inspects on site; and USHAŞ issues the certificate within 15 business days of approval. The regulation sets no deadline for scheduling the on-site inspection itself.
Authorised Turkish providers exhibit on Health onMESSE: you can see how it works for agencies, and Turkish clinics can read how it works for exhibitors and see the prices. More guides for this fair are in the Health onMESSE guide library.
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